While stumbling around YouTube, these videos popped up.I am not endorsing that anyone performs this procedure. But, it does make some interesting viewing. 2-part video.
It will never sounds as good as an unmolested element. Just taking one apart and putting it back together is very difficult and it takes alot of practice and tweaking to get it right. It is interesting if you have a broken 1 and want to play around.
It takes the hands of a surgeon. There is one guy in the world who does this on a regular basis. whenever I get a CM or CR that isn't right, I send it to Chuck Gurney - Fat Bottom Mics. Trust me this is not something you'll be good at on your first, or second, or maybe even 3rd try. Chuck has done it hundreds of times.
In my experience, it sounds BETTER than the unmolested element because the unmolested element NEEDED REPAIR. Why would you ever work on one that didn't? And as far as I'm concerned, they sound just s good as they should. Not sure where 528Hemi's experience/comment come from.
I should have said it will never sound as good as the original good unmolested element before it had issues. It is that difficult to set properly.
Also, If you happen to get an element that is thin sounding or with less output then another, sending it off to Chuck will not gaurantee it will come back sounding better. There are many factors to the tone and output of each element. You will never find one sounding exactly the same as another.
David Kott has this to say on his site :GREENBULLETMICS.COM
"There are also guy's tearing the elements apart now and rebuilding them with rewound windings. As this will boost the impedance, once they have been taken apart, they usually never sound as good as they did before. For one, there is a pin that was either welded or press fit extremely tightly into another part that once removed can never be put back as good as it was, once it has been removed. The elements were also fine tuned for gain and response with special equipment at the factory before being put into microphones. I highly doubt that anyone has the equipment or capability to do this as accurately. There are also other parameters that just cannot be put back to the exact same specs, mainly, because nobody knows what they are. I have rebuilt many of these elements, and have experimented with capacitors, magnets and many other ideas trying to make these things better. The fact is, they are as good as they're going to get if they're in good working order, and once they are taken apart, they'll likely never sound as good as they did before. If that were the case, I'd be doing the same rebuilding and rewinding the elements. The low Z elements that are rewound to be high Z elements will sound better than they did when they were low Z, but they will not sound as good as a good strong high Z element that has never been taken apart. Thats just the way it is and don't believe anything else. If money is tight and you can have a low Z element rewound for $20, then it may be a good option, but personally I would never pay for a rewound element if I could buy a (never rebuilt) high Z element for the same or less money, and this is likely the case."
Agree Totally! Sometimes the element only needs a minor tweak and those are the ones which you might get lucky making better. Controlled reluctance elements alot of time you find the disc which is glued can become brittle and regluing can make the element better so it is possible to make them somewhat better. It is very specific to the element and what exactly is wrong with it.
Minor tweak is about all that can be done for sure,. Controlled reluctance element disc or top hat as I call em, I believe are press fit with the pin an glued from underneath to the diaphram ,in the 1960's with the new CM's Shure started to drop a glob of epoxy / glue right on top of both the pin an the disc to stop the brittle problem like with the Cr's.
THE ELEMENT ON THE LEFT IS A CR RIGHT IS CM WITH GLOB GLUE:
What the above videos are showing is taking a Low / Mid Z to a Hi Z state by molesting the element ,..also a lot of work an may not sound any better than before ! A roll of they dice at best.
A better way to go to get an element from Low / Mid Z to a Hi Z state is to install a Low to High Z Transformer,at least going this route the element stays unmolested ! ------------click Link Below -----------
